Jan 17, 2007

In Defense of Kaplan Thaler

Those of you who roll your eyes at the Kaplan Thaler Group and its creative output would do well to remember the words of David Ogilvy who said "the consumer isn't stupid, she's your wife."

Because unless your wife is a 29 year-old hipster living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, she probably thinks a lot of what Ms. K-T puts out is pretty funny.

It's the Achilles heel of the ad business-- our tendency to judge things by the standards of the sort of young, sophisticated, single, urban male who already thinks Death Cab for Cutie is too "mass" to be cool anymore.

Unfortunately, most things are not bought by young, sophisticated, single, urban males who already think Death Cab for Cutie is too "mass" to be cool anymore. They're bought by 55 year old women who think the Aflac duck is just the funniest thing they've ever seen. And that the purple kangaroo for Aussie Natural hair products is just "so adorable."

Now ad hipsters may not like that, may not like the fact that this audience keeps Barry Manilow, Michael Bolton and Dancing With The Stars in business, but there's a lot more of them than there are of you. And Kaplan Thaler is pretty smart to be marketing to them in a voice that resonates with who they are while everyone else is busy trying to sound like their no-good slacker nephews.